how to figure out that worksheet is set to Manual Calculation mode

my pet peeve - yup - that little exasperating option that users check on to infinitely p!$$ off others... you could be changing formulae furiously and not getting proper results without it dawning until much later to check that darn Calculation Mode (ALT > M > X).

well, looks like Excel does, sort of, warn you with a message in the Status Bar at the bottom-left of the screen, where it shows the word Calculate - if Manual Calculation option has been set and there are cells that have been marked as 'to-be-calculated' by Excel. it still takes me a couple of seconds before i look there, but much better than changing formulae whole-scale without reason.



to save @mdw the trouble of trawling the internet to figure out if this is an "original" idea or not ;-), this is where i found this nugget.

Nice to know.

ha ha ha ha ha ha lol never ever new that! nice tip
btw it's hard to know what is a tip,things you take for granted are sometimes new to everyone else.now for example i know that right click on the arrows in the bar under the last row
gives a sheet menu but would i think to post that as a tip?

true, martin, certain things would have become such a part of daily routine that we become dispassionate towards them (thus relegating them from the mantle of 'trick' or 'tip', they are just blase 'functions'). feels foolish to even huckster them as 'tips' any more!

for e.g., highlighting a certain number of rows (or columns), then right-clicking and selecting Insert, inserts the exact number of fresh new rows (or columns) as those selected - now that may not be much of a tip in my book, as i have been using it for over a decade, but the other day someone 'repped' me for offering that trick.

i guess after a few months / years of utilising this 'Calculate' tip, it will attain the same status as the ones that came before it.

Perhaps we need a new section for "Your favourite little timesavers".....

I'm always astounded when I watch other people use Excel. Sometimes because I think "why don't they do it this way? It would be much quicker!" and sometimes because I think "I must remember how they did that!"

I'm a sucker for a keyboard shortcut

Status Bar Shows “CALCULATE”
There are five known conditions in which the status bar will show CALCULATE:

The Calculation Option has been set to Manual and the workbook contains uncalculated formulae. Try setting calculation to Automatic (Tools-->Options-->Calculate). Note that Excel sets the calculation mode from the first workbook opened in a session: when you open two workbooks, one saved in manual mode and one saved in automatic mode, they will both have the calculation mode of the first workbook opened.
The Iteration Option is turned on and the workbook contains circular references. Check that turning off Iteration (Tools-->Options-->Calculation) and pressing F9 shows "Circular Reference" in the statusbar.
You are using Excel 2000 without the SR1 update and have a user-defined function that attempts to define a name and depends on a volatile function: see MSKB Q248179
You have hit one of Excels limits for tracking dependencies.
You are using Excel 2007 and have set Workbook.ForceFullCalculation to True

From: http://www.decisionmodels.com/calcsecretsf.htm

Dom

As stated in the link though it's not the only reason Calulate is shown.

Dom

no one expects the spanish inquisition!